by S M Hardy
To my relief I could still see her. She crouched down to let Benji scramble to the ground, then the pair of them trotted off along the path and, to my disappointment, slowly faded away. It didn’t matter, she had told me what I needed to know. I kept my eyes to the right, searching the shrubbery for a bulky shape. The path began to slope downwards, we were approaching the track down to the cove.
I gripped the torch and raised it slightly getting ready for any attack. I could feel my heart pounding in my ears and a trickle of sweat run down my spine. I saw the black mass of undergrowth begin to thin and then a gap. I lifted the flashlight to shoulder height and there was a roar, more like a howl, and something barrelled into me.
The ferocity of the attack bowled me off my feet and into the bushes to my left. A figure loomed above me. A flash across the sky illuminated the bulk towering over me in stark relief. I couldn’t make out any features within the hooded raincoat, but I did see a glimmer of metal as an arm rose and came swinging down towards me.
Surrounded by the shrubbery I couldn’t roll away, I was trapped. I flung up the arm holding the torch, swiping it across my body. I felt the clash of metal against metal as I knocked the blade aside hard enough to make my fingers tingle.
There was another roar and, as I struggled to get off my back like some overturned beetle, I saw the arm rise again. I grabbed hold of the torch at both ends and threw it up in front of me hoping to deflect the second blow, but it never came. The figure was whipped away.
A yell was followed by a shriek and when I managed to pull myself onto one knee, I could see two figures wrestling on the path a few feet away.
In the dark it was impossible to see who was who. Just two shadows separating then merging into one, locked in mortal combat. I clambered to my feet and got ready to hit out with the torch, but hit out at who? If anything, the rain had got worse and was falling like a curtain between me and them.
A flash across the bay half-blinded me, and a second later a boom loud enough to make my ears ring made the ground tremble beneath me, then a yell and a figure bounding away leaving the other in a crumpled heap. I switched on the torch and dropped down beside Jed. He was lying on his side clutching his shoulder, and it might have been the torchlight, but his usually ruddy complexion was a sickly white.
‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ he said, although he was anything but. I could see blood seeping through his fingers and his breath was coming in gasps.
‘Jed, you need help.’
‘It’s my bloody shoulder – I won’t die, Lucy might. Get after Miriam − get after her!’
I didn’t want to leave him, but he was right. I had to get to Miriam before she got to Lucy. I ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I ran with the torch shining ahead. There was no point hiding my progress now, she knew I’d be after her and she knew she had to get to Lucy before I caught her. If Lucy was still alive. I couldn’t think that she wasn’t. I couldn’t let myself believe she could possibly be dead. I’d let Kat down. I couldn’t let another woman I loved die because of me.
Running in wellington boots isn’t easy at the best of times, but when they’re a size too big, the weather conditions are apocalyptic and you’re negotiating a slippery narrow track it is nigh on impossible, but still I somehow ran. I had to.
Above the pounding of the rain, the howling of the wind and the crashing of the waves below me I heard Benji bark. He’d never let me down before, so I switched off the torch and slowed to a trot, my eyes straining to see the path ahead – and a memory flickered up out of my subconscious.
‘The man’, David, thought he was so clever, but I had seen – he had let me see. David running along the path, jubilant. Wanting to tell Miriam what he’d done. Wanting to let her know what a clever little psychopath he was, but instead finding the other sister waiting for him. Waiting at the one place on the path where an abrupt and unexpected push would send him tumbling to the rocks below.
And even though I could hardly see a thing I knew the spot wasn’t more than a few yards from here and Miriam − David − would be waiting. I slowed right down, peering through rain that was falling like stair rods.
There was another yap, so close that the terrier must be right by my side. I stood stock-still, the rain stinging my skin as it pounded my face. I pulled the hood back, so I at least had some peripheral vision. Another yap a few feet ahead and to my right. I slowly let my eyes scan the edge of the path.
Come on, you bastard, come on. A voice growled in my head.
Was he trying to goad me? Or did he not realise I could hear him, feel him, sense him?
Come on, you fucking bastard. Just a few more steps.
Could he see me? I couldn’t see him. I stood my ground.
Bastard … and my head was suddenly awash with the nightmare ravings of the man I now knew to be David Carlisle. It was like a sluice had been opened as the sick fantasies of what he wanted to do to me spewed out in a vitriolic stream. I gritted my teeth to hold back my gasps as each atrocity punched into my psyche. Then, in amongst the sewer that was his mind, I saw glimpses of Lucy.
Lucy leaving the Sly dressed in knee-length wax jacket with flat cap covered by a hood. Lucy on the ground, eyes closed, a dark patch bruising her temple. Lucy bound to one of Emma’s kitchen chairs with duct tape across her mouth, eyes wide and scared, trying to scream against the tape as the kitchen blade hovered inches from her face.
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Oh God, Lucy.
And it was as if the Almighty had heard me as there was a flash of lightning that I’m sure hit the cliff, the resultant boom rocking me on my feet, but in that one moment I saw him – her – it – standing just three feet away from me and, in that split second, I knew what Darcy had told us was true. I could see it was Miriam, but although it was her face staring out from beneath her hood, it wasn’t really. It wasn’t just the snarling lips or the manic eyes, there was something masculine there: a hardening of her soft cheeks, a tautening and darkening of her jaw and upper lip.
Then the light was gone, and she was coming at me, arm raised, knife in hand. I lashed out with the torch and was rewarded with a solid thump hitting her right shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to take her down. I didn’t give her time to recover. I swung the torch again, and this time it smashed into the side of her head. She gave a yelp, and abruptly turned and began to run away.
I hesitated for a moment – was it a trick? Would she abruptly turn on me with that damned knife before I had a chance to stop? The vision of Lucy staring in terror at the kitchen knife we’d found smeared with blood flashed into my head and it was enough to spur me on. She must have hidden Lucy somewhere and I had to follow. I had to be right behind the thing that had been Miriam when it got there.
We were almost at the point and at last the rain eased, the flashes of lightning were fewer and the following booms of thunder fading into the distance. Black storm clouds still chased across the sky, but they were moving on, and occasionally the moon peeked out, bathing the landscape in its pale light, if only for a moment or two.
Now and then I caught sight of a figure charging along the track ahead of me. For a big woman Miriam was certainly fast on her feet as she was getting further and further ahead of me, and if she got to Lucy before I could catch her … My fear for Lucy was the impetus I needed to push myself even harder and the next time I caught sight of Miriam I was catching her.
The moon came out as the path ahead dipped and for a few yards the point was out of sight and then, when I ran up the next incline and rounded a bend, I was on the last upward stretch and had a clear view of Miriam ahead of me. Her age must have been beginning to tell as she was slowing, but then so was I. My heart was pounding, my legs were tiring and my calves were burning, but I had to catch her, I just had to.
I was about ten yards behind her when she reached the top. I forced myself to speed up, even though I knew I could be running into a trap. I had no choice. Then the
path evened out and I was running towards the viewing point and there was Miriam.
She threw back her hood and reached down, knife in her other hand. I stopped as she pulled a figure off the ground.
What you going to do now, you little fucker?
She didn’t say the words, but I heard them as clear as day. Miriam pulled Lucy against her and pressed that lethally sharp knife to her throat.
Lucy’s face was pale beneath streaks of what could have been mud or blood in the moonlight. I could see tape stretched across her mouth and wrapped around her ankles, her hands were hidden from view behind her back − I assumed they were taped too. She was between me and a demented psychopath and there wasn’t a thing I could do to save her.
There was no way I could see this ending well. This being that was David had made it clear he was going to murder Lucy in front of me. It would be either me dead or him, and he was confident it would be me. He’d killed before and enjoyed it. He didn’t believe I had it in me. He believed I was weak – and he was probably right.
‘So, Jim – what are you going to do now?’ Miriam’s lips moved, but the voice was deeper and rough-sounding. She laughed and pressed the point of the knife into the crease in Lucy’s neck just below the jaw. Lucy winced and a teardrop of blood, black in the moonlight, slowly ran down her neck mingling with the rain and staining the collar of her T-shirt.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I said.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she sneered. ‘Why do you think?’
I shook my head.
‘Because I can,’ and she pressed the blade into Lucy’s cheekbone.
‘Don’t!’
‘Don’t!’ she mimicked. ‘Don’t what, Jim? Don’t cut your whore of a girlfriend’s face to ribbons? Don’t cut out her eyes and force them down her throat? Don’t throw her off the cliff? Don’t hurt her?’ She moved the knife until it was resting just below Lucy’s eye. ‘No chance. I want to see you suffer. I want to see you snivelling like a little kid. I want to hear you begging for her life and then, when I’ve finished with her, I want to hear you begging for your own.’
The rain had subsided to not much more than a drizzle so we didn’t need to shout to make ourselves heard, and the moon was turning the landscape silver, so I could see Miriam and Lucy clearly. This, unfortunately, meant David could enjoy himself. Not much fun in playing with Lucy and me if we couldn’t hear or see what was going on.
‘On your knees,’ Miriam spat at me. ‘Get down on your knees and beg.’
I did as she said; I didn’t have a choice. I got down on my knees, a muddy slurry instantly soaking through my jeans and chilling my bones.
‘See him now, you little slut? See your big man down on his knees to me.’
Lucy’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment and, when they opened, she looked me straight in the eyes and although I’m sure she was scared there was a steely resolve in her expression.
‘I can’t hear you,’ Miriam said, pointing the knife at me. ‘I told you I want to hear you beg.’
Lucy was still staring at me, and she gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head and then her legs appeared to give way beneath her.
‘What are you doing, you little bitch?’ Miriam was having trouble keeping Lucy upright. She had hold of her arm, but Lucy was slipping down to the ground.
‘She’s passed out,’ I shouted at Miriam, although I could see Lucy’s eyes were wide open and knowing if either of us were to have a chance of making it out of this alive I would have to take probably the only opportunity I would get. I jumped to my feet and threw myself across the few yards between us.
Our tormentor was wrong-footed. She was off balance as she tried to drag Lucy to her feet and taken completely by surprise as I ran at her screaming my lungs out. Lucy slipped from Miriam’s grip and, seeing me coming, curled up into a ball, making herself as small as possible, rolling to the right.
Miriam stumbled backwards a couple of steps, but almost immediately regained her composure and lifted the knife getting ready to strike, but too late. At the last moment I turned sideways on and barged into her with my shoulder; to my way of thinking I was more likely to survive a stab to the back than one to the gut.
If she did land a blow, I didn’t feel it. I hit her hard, sending her staggering backwards and into the tubular guard rail with a grunt of pain. I stayed pressed against her and grabbed for her throat, aware my shoulders and back were exposed.
I caught a whiff of lavender perfume reminding me that this was a middle-aged woman I was attacking, and it proved a costly distraction. She sensed my momentary hesitation and smacked her forehead into mine, making me see stars and knocking me back, leaving enough room to free the hand holding the lethal blade. She lashed out. I heard a muffled scream from behind me and just in time leant back as the knife skimmed across the front of my coat.
Miriam let out a roar of frustration and came right at me again. At some point I’d dropped the torch and had nothing to defend myself with as she rushed me, arm raised and knife flashing in the moonlight. I was back-pedalling as fast as I could, not daring to take my eyes off the figure descending upon me in an apoplectic frenzy. Her lips pulled back in feral fury, spittle coating her lips.
I lifted up an arm to protect my face, skidded on a loose stone, tried to right myself and then my feet flew out from beneath me and I hit the ground, smacking the back of my head. My vision turned red then black, and if it hadn’t been for Lucy I might just have given into the darkness. I saw a shadow amongst all the black and I rolled to the left hearing the ring of metal against stone and the force of a presence on the ground next to me. I kept rolling and then struggled to stand. Miriam was also clambering to her feet.
She turned on me with a snarl. ‘Don’t think you’re going to get away from me, little man.’
I couldn’t argue. I couldn’t draw enough breath to speak.
‘But first I’m going to deal with your little bitch.’
She abruptly swung around and stalked towards Lucy, who was struggling to get off her knees. Miriam raised the blade above her head, and I heard her laugh. Male laughter. Deep, resounding, masculine laughter.
‘You’re not going to be so pretty when I’ve finished with you. No more prick teasing for you. No decent man will ever look at you again.’
Knife or no knife I had to stop David; it might be Miriam’s body, but it was him pulling her strings. I launched myself at her back and once again barged into her with my shoulder. She went down with me lying on top of her, her right hand stretched out, fingers scrabbling, to reach the knife that had slipped from her grasp.
I crawled up her body, keeping her pressed down in the mud as I desperately tried to get to the knife before she did. She wriggled and strained beneath me. This time, any thought of the person I was fighting being an older woman was driven from my mind. I pressed my knee into her back and slammed her face down into the dirt, and still she tried to throw me off as her fingers bit into the earth, inching that little bit closer to the handle of the knife.
I kept my hand on the back of her head, grinding Miriam’s face into the mud and rock as I reached out with my other hand. Whether she could somehow see I was going to get to it before she did, I’ll never know, but she abruptly bucked beneath me, throwing me upwards as she made one last lunge for the knife. Her fingers curled around the handle. I heard her cry of triumph and then she was pushing down with both hands, levering herself up while I tried to cling onto her.
Frantic beyond reason, I clenched my fist and hammered it into the side of her temple – once, twice and a third time. I could have been hitting a brick wall for all the good I was doing. Miriam was an overweight, fifty-something spinster and yet her body was taking everything I could throw at it. David must be giving her this additional strength.
Miriam was twisting around beneath me and if she managed to get onto her back, I would be at the mercy of the lethal weapon she had in her grip. I pummelled at her head, but it was no u
se. Then with one massive heave she turned over and in desperation I rolled away from her, the knife narrowly missing my right cheek.
For such a bulky woman she was quick on her feet. I’d only just managed to position myself between her and Lucy when she was coming at me, knife extended.
Her face was a bloody mess, but even so she was grinning at me with scarlet-stained teeth. She turned her head and spat. I think I’d broken her nose. I backed away until I was next to Lucy and, not taking my eyes off the advancing woman, helped her to her feet, then pushed her behind me.
‘Ah, isn’t that sweet?’ David said. If Miriam was still in there she was completely dominated by her sibling, there wasn’t a shred of her standing there. The body, maybe, but the way she spoke, the way she stood, even the way she held her head – this was David. ‘Time to say goodbye.’
I glanced back at Lucy. She was pressed up against the guard rail. I supposed to help keep her standing. The expression in her eyes said it all, she knew we were done for.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No!’
‘No what, little man? No, I’m not going to kill you? No, I’m not going to—’
Now I lay me down to sleep.
David stopped, his mouth dropping open as he looked about him and a glimmer of Miriam appeared. ‘What?’
I pray the Lord my soul to keep and a dog barked.
Miriam was looking back and forth, and even spun around to look behind her, unfortunately David wasn’t stupid enough to let her turn her back on us for long.
‘How are you doing that?’ David said, glaring at me.
‘Doing what?’ I asked.
And if I die before I wake.
‘You know! You fucking well know!’
I shook my head.
I pray the Lord and the air quivered as slowly a small figure began to materialise between us.
I don’t know if Lucy could see her, but the thing that had once been Miriam certainly could. She began to back away, and as she did there was a bark and a small terrier bounded forward to bounce up and down, barking and snarling a few feet away from her.